wtf happened with the kickstarter?

The explanation depends entirely upon which Kickstarter we’re talking about.

After almost a year of preparations, and after many delays, in October of 2013 French Toast Gaming Co. launched the first Kickstarter. This was intended to fund a complete 7 deck boxed set of the game. The very final PnP of Deck One: The Highlands was released at this time and though the fundraiser failed in spectacular fashion, it found the game a fanbase. Before the end of the year, French Toast Gaming Co. teased another Kickstarter, and translated editions offered by several international players.

In October of 2014 French Toast Gaming Co. launched the 2014 Kickstarter, which was funded in less than two weeks by a patron known as SoloStoryGamer. The fundraiser became something special, with many backers becoming friends across various social media platforms, and a group dynamic evolving on the open ended honesty of both creators and fans. After funding several bonuses were offered, including original play test editions of the game, 75 bonus cards, tee shirts, original sketches from the game’s artist Cousin Lauren, and promises for two PnP downloads: the first realmwalker product, and Deck Two: The Forest. Promises were made to ship cards out by March of 2015.

But it was not to be.

Eight months after the 2014 Kickstarter ended we had moved the release date sporadically, in hopes of hearing back from our manufacturer. Problems with printing persisted and several communication breakdowns occurred between our company (US) our manufacturer (Canada) and their factory (Hong Kong). After many delays we decided to add more cards as a sort of apology to fans for the wait. This was The Prelude Deck (considered Deck ) in the 5 deck Spell Saga campaign).

In July of 2014 we launched yet another Kickstarter, this time for new players who had missed the last fundraiser. We called this one The New Language Launch, and offered the game in German, & Portuguese downloads. We also let patrons download the PnP of the new Prelude Deck. This Kickstarter was met with expected mixed emotions. Once again funded by SoloStoryGamer, detractors felt uneasy about another Kickstarter product had been shipped for the last one.

The following month FTGC. received our first of many test packages from the manufacturer. Three more packages followed until the cards were deemed “almost correct” in December of 2015. Nearly everything was ready except for six holofoil cards, which were cut too large, then recut but with the wrong colored backs.

More unexpected delays occurred, until FTGC announced a new plan; the company would pay out of pocket to have enough “first edition” units air-shipped from Hong Kong to Nashville, TN. These would be sent to each Kickstarter backer along with any extra cards, t-shirts, sketches, etc.

After this, FTGCO would officially sign off on a final edition with changes to the box (to match the brand new international edition boxes first seen in the Italian play test versions) and with correctly printed holofoils. If any backer ordered more than one deck, FTGCO also announced they would also be printing Deck Two: The Forest, and sending it to anyone with multiple orders.

The cards are slated to appear on FTGCO’s doorstep before July of 2016.